With comprehensive detection, the software finds EVERYTHING that can be restored and it is ableto salvage files even in the most difficult cases when you re-formatted a FAT drive with NTFS or vice versa.The application is extremely easy-to-use, and no special skills are required. It supports ALL Windows file systems including NTFS/NTFS5, FAT12/16/32.

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#95

Looked like it would be nice. Activated and installed no problems. Did a number of tests and wasn't impressed with results as files found could not be read

1. new 500 GB Z drive - HP media internal, empty as use it to extract files before copy to C then delete. Found no files.

2. 128 flash - FAT - use to sync files between computers so empty. Names found were familiar and correct. Several screens found Listed as good condition. Clicked on a few .jpg, Photoshop (default picture handler) opened but got message "Could not open C:\......\Temp\~TMP\filename because an unknown or invalid JPEG marker type is found.

Any good condition .zip file -- also came out invalid.

Is there a restore step that I'm missing? The file was on flash or K:\

Very nice software. The work that has gone into making the software user friendly really stands out.

One little bug, the screen always shows "Loading. Please wait..." on the bottom left & "Scanning" on the bottom right, although the HDD scan has clearly finished and all HDD activity has ceased.

Anyways this little bug in no way affects the software performance. It did affect changing settings as it thinks it is still scanning but isn't.

I have a 110GB HDD that I have been painstakingly recovering for a friend. It had a quick format performed on it via windows. I have been slowly going through the recovery process for at least a week trying to retrieve all the jpeg files from it.

I decided to try MultiStage Recovery when I saw it being offered here.

I started the initial scan, this took 11 1/2 hours! At first I thought gee whizz! that is a long time to scan 110GB and list the recoverable files! I was pleasantly surprised to find the recovery process (the part I need to actively be involved in) very very swift and painless. I am currently recovering 25 pages at a time, each time to a separate folder. I have been at it for around half an hour and have recovered 11.2GB (12,053 files)!!! THIS IS FIRST RATE STUFF!

At this pace I will have finished the recovery by tomorrow! I am very happy.

Of course there will be a load of old temporary internet files, but it is up to my friend to scour through all the pics and decide what they want and don't want.

To the Author(s) / Developer(s) you have created a very nice piece of software here, I will defenitely be referring to everyone I know that needs to perform data recovery! For ease of use and successful recovery this is the best I have tried yet!

As #17, who said that, mentioned, NTFS.com has a lot of software with good reputations AFAIK, the top-of-the-line being Active Boot Disk. It's pricey, but a trial is available.

#23, sarah/mmmcherries, see if there's a computer user group in your area. They can help you with issues, and most have computer classes. Or find a geek who can help. For learning about computers, there's Help and Support built into most versions of XP/Vista (it's generally a hybrid of OEM and Microsoft help). Apart from the web, there are computer books for beginners and DVD-ROM tutorials. I'd start with Windows Help and Support and whatever your OEM provides, you can learn most of the basics from that. It should be on your Start menu, and should also appear when you press F1 (after selecting an empty area of your desktop, otherwise you may get program-specific help).

#53, Bruce Slemmer, and others asking about CDs and DVDs, they use a different file system. Various other recovery programs support those, such as iolo Search and Recover.

#61, Terry, see #84, Fubarfan2, for a good explanation of DEP. Full DEP protection is normally off unless you select it. However, that's not your registration problem. You didn't say what version of Windows you're using. Some programs need to be activated from an administrator account, and some Vista programs need the program and/or Activate to be run as an administrator (if I comment on an offering, I note that sort of thing). I assume that you extract the contents of the giveaway .zip files and read the Readme before installing (while extracting first isn't always necessary, it can be, and I strongly recommend doing so). FYI, on NTFS XP/Vista volumes, some types of .zip files should be unblocked before extracting, such as Microsoft Sysinternals utilities. Right-click the .zip file, select Properties, and if an Unblock button is present, select it. Normal GOTD giveaways don't require unblocking.

Some general notes on recovering. As others have mentioned, anytime your computer is on or booting, at least your system drive/partition/volume is being modified and potentially recoverable data is being lost. Defragmenting a volume overwrites most recoverable data. Recovery must always be done to another volume because recovery programs don't recover files in-place, they make another copy, which can overwrite recoverable data, including the very file being recovered.

Some comments on Recuva, especially for those who said it didn't work. Make sure you have the latest version, and pay attention to the options. The Deep Scan is a sector scan, and looks for file signatures rather than relying on the file tables on the disk (only try it if the normal scan doesn't find what you need). Recuva has a heavily context-menu (right-click) oriented UI. Files whose condition is anything other than excellent cannot be fully recovered (I hate the way it lists files which can't be recovered at all). Files, even large files, listed as having excellent condition may still not be recoverable, the condition is merely an estimate based on the information in the file tables. Recuva could be improved in many ways, such as not listing files whose sizes are larger than the free space on the drive as being recoverable.

Downloaded, activated and installed fine on WinXP SP3. Installed first to HD then to USB drive. Launched from USB drive with no problems. I had no trouble installing to a USB drive. Just changed to install location to that drive. Didn't change anything else such as the folder names. Just replaced C (my hard drive letter) with G (my USB drive letter).

Didn't get a chance to test to the extent I wanted. Like Bruce Slemmer, was hoping to recover material from DVDs, but, it doesn't go down to the bit level. If it doesn't recognize the file system, it can't see the drive. At least with the unfinalized DVDs burned on a malfunctioning Toshiba burner that I was trying to recover. Didn't have time for an extended scan of my hard drive. Basic scan found plenty of files, but did not get a condition reading on any of them. That's a staple on any other undeleter I've seen. Which brings me to help. So basic, it doesn't describe all the functionings. Like the various adjustable settings. Undescribed. Like why is the quick scan setting described as scanning all files and folders (for what?), but a complete scan only scans for deleted files (I thought this was the whole idea.)? GUI is nicer than in the basic undeleters I've used.

Bottom line: seems to do what it says, but:

1. Needs at least a couple more help pages.
2. Don't understand why I don't get a condition reading on a basic scan, that's pretty much a standard undelete feature - don't want to waste time on trying to recover files I marginally need if there's not much chance doing so. Of course, as Phil says, I'm pretty careful so hardly ever need an undeleter. Mainly use them to bail out other people.
3. Plus: preview function is a nice timesaver, though it didn't work on any jpg or png in my recycle bin. Told me every file might be corrupted. Worked on other types, though.

Conclusion: Maybe with better help. Nice looking. Nice extra or two (maybe I'm missing some which I'd know about with better help). But it's not revolutionary. Not something I'd pay for, yet. Nice try, but it needs some fine tuning.

I amnot to download this kind of stuff but this sounded like it would be useful if it worked. I deleted files on a usb drive 2 years ago and able to get them back. I think that this is a great program!
works just like it stated.

Comment 2 Tony
I installed it on my usb flash drive, but then only comes up as “Evalation version” which does make sence. Is Registered ver intall on USB flash drive possable
30 ww2vet56
For those interested in today’s offer & who are having difficulty installing it on a flash drive: Try running activate exe. first & changing the directory to a pre-created folder on said drive then installing it there.
69 Skye-hook
will now try to install it on a flash drive. -----------------
I installed it on my Flash Drive and it worked fine on that computer, but on another computer the program on the flash drive is limited to recovering files under 35k in size. The Activate program evidently stored the important registration information on the hard drive of the first computer. Is it possible to get that information onto the flash drive itself, so the program would actually be useful/portable?

#10-- thanks a ton hun!! ill totally check those out... as for this program offered.. i cant get it to do anything really. i could use something like this for on issue, but i dont think this is either working right or something i can figure out... i keep getting the same thing alot of the others above me are... thanks guys!!

I just downloaded, registered and tried MultiStage Recovery. Unfortunately it didn't work either. It didn't recognize the DVD-RW drive (as many other of these types of programs did not) even though the description says "other digital storage devices". This may be because of the file system DirectCD uses (UDP I think).

Only one program, IsoBuster, looked promising. It found the deleted file but would not restore it because it's not a registered version. The registered version costs $30 and the file I want back is not worth that, to me. I guess I'll just have to keep looking for a cheap or free program to do the job, or consider the file lost for good.

My FAT32 secondary HDD has suddenly changed file system to RAW. It says I have 0 bytes of data saved, free and capacity of 0 bytes. When I click on the drive, it tells me disk is not formatted and if I want to format it now.

How can I recover my lost data??

Does anybody know if this SW is fit for purpose (I'm not at home now, so can't prove it at once)??

If not which alternative TOOL would you suggest I should buy to solve the problem??

I downloaded it this morning and used it tonight. My sons drive crashed last night and when I tried to do a restore it put the restore on the backup drive. Needless to say I thought all my music was lost for good. I ran the software and it found it all. YEA!! The only issue I have is about half of my .wma files won't open now, media player said the extention does not match the file type (I'm thinking that part of the file was copied over with the restore) so I doubt its the software's fault. Over all I love that it saved me most of the heart ache of thinking it was lost for good. I would recomend the software.

It looks to me like some of the people having problems with this software are not RTFM! I just popped it on to a USB stick and recovered deleted files from said stick to another drive. As the Help clearly states, NEVER try to recover files to the SAME drive!

The Help file is pretty reasonable IMHO and explains some of the more unusual parts of the GUI (select the FILES and then press R key).

If the English in the prompts bother you, go to Settings and Edit the English file to suit your sensibilities. ;)

Installed & ran ok on XP sp3. I don't have anything to test it on except my main hd on this machine, but I will now try to install it on a flash drive. Will post later if doesn't work. I do have a question. If I put it on a flash drive & have to reformat AGAIN later, since I don't have a 2nd drive to put it on, if I use this to recover the drive on this PC, there is NOWHERE TO PUT MY RECOVERED DRIVE ON, & as I have 85.7 gigs of disk full, on a 160G/145G usable hd, what do I do with it?? AND can it recover the whole drive, including Windows & settings, or just seperate files? I know, I need an external drive for Xmas, as we all do need one anymore, obviously. Thanks for any help.
Thanks much GOTD & Enplase Research! :)

Replying to my own comment (#11) - the program works perfectly, it saved a lot of my time. Thanks GOTD, and don't mind all the idiots people voting down on this just because they don't need such software or are too stupid lazy to find out how it works. I like how the program looks (awesome design!), how it works (fast and using different methods), how easy to use is it (recovery wizard, preview, nicely ordered toolbar and menus)... Definitely a keeper! I had copied lots of pictures on a USB stick (1 gig) to bring to a photo store, and somehow they were mysteriously all gone before I could go there. Anyways, Recuva didn't find anything on the stick, but MultiStage Recovery did. It got all the pics, even with correct names and completely intact. Without this great program, I would have had to again sort out what I need to make into 'real' photos - it were luck that I didn't delete them from my HDD.
Bottom line - one of my favorite giveaways! Thanks once more to GOTD and the devs (Enplase Research Corporation). :-)

I gave it a 60GB portable drive to chew on. After 10 minutes it had detected some file names. However none of the contents was readable. I recovered a few .JPGs and .PDFs but they were all corrupted. Maybe I was expecting too much.
I also didn't like that you can't resize or move it's window while scanning for deleted files. I guess I'll keep this for a last resort, but I won't be buying it.

There is no such thing as a perfect Un-Delete program, & your results will vary depending on how you deleted whatever files, how soon you realized the error & powered off the PC, & to some extent, just plain luck. Some recovery programs will perform better than others on really difficult jobs, giving you more options, & as Fubar noted, some programs just run better than others, but for run-of-the-mill recovery tasks, your results IMHO depend more on circumstances than on which program(s) you used.

This is because, Simplified, files are stored by filling as many packets with data as necessary -- think boxes of marbles, where the size of the boxes & number of marbles determines how many boxes you'll need. To find your files there's a table of contents that lists what packets hold a file's data, where they are, and in what order they should be chained together. This TOC also prevents packets assigned to a file from being over-written.

Normally when you delete a file you delete that file's entries in the TOC, but the data remains as long as it's not overwritten, & that's the key to whether you'll be able to recover the file or not -- whether any of the packets have been used to store new data. The same goes for quick formatting, where the entire drive is not over-written.

If/when the file(s) you want to recover reside on your system drive, running Windows &/or any other programs increases the odds that your data will be over-written. Powering off your PC -- not shutting down Windows (or any other OS) -- & then connecting your drive to another PC for recovery, increases the odds that your data will still be there. Or you can try booting from a CD or USB stick or external drive etc, and run your recovery software from one of those. That's why some comments talk about bad results recovering files using only one drive... You've got to either stop all writing to the disk, or hope for good luck.

#3 I use ZAR - Zero Assumption Recovery (http://www.z-a-recovery.com/) and works perfectly also for corrupted digital photos. Well I'm very content with it and definitely it worth more than a try... I could restore all my corrupted digital pictures with it and for free. Without it I couldn't imagine what 'd I make...
N'andor

#6 - Fubar - I was unable to get Smart Diary Suite to work yesterday; I installed and uninstalled several times because it would say "thank you for registering" and then when I would try to confirm this, it remained as "unregistered" version. I have just checked the installed "MultiStage Recovery" program and although I followed all normal installation methods, it remains the "evaluation version". What is "DEP" exception and how does it make this type of program work? I always watch for your comments when visiting GAOTD,and find them very helpful, consistently. (I also have had not one, but two dogs named Fubar.) So I am a fan. :)
Also a fan of GAOTD - thank you.

Hope you can help, I am a neebie to GOTD. Just downloaded Mulitstage Recovery and it installed well on WINXP SP3 Acer laptop. However, during the install process I was never asked to register or given a registration number. When I tried to run the program it told me I had an evaluation version and would not recover my files. Please advise what to do... Thank you in advance

I hate not being able to correct mistakes made on a post. When a person's spelling or gramme is negatively criticized on this forum, the person that the mistakes may see them and not have the opportunity to make corrections.

Tragic enough

I think that it is funny when one person criticizes another for the mistakes he made and then the post being viciously critical contains mistakes itself.

There seems to be several comments on the procedures to follow with the recovery programs

There is several comments listed on this board on the procedures to follow with a recovery program. I did not see a single comment that gave the entire procedure for the recovery of files and disks. One of the 2 most important that the left out.

With this recovery program and any others the steps should be as follows:

1. Make an exact image of the drive containing the file or files you want to recover (I use "Acronis True Image") - a backup will not do. An image of a drive will be exactly the same as the damaged drive itself. You carry out the recovery steps on the image not the original drive. If you make a mistake on the image, you can delete the image and make a new one.

2. Make your recovery to a disk other than the damaged one.

With the steps above you give yourself more than one opportunity for recovery. You can try multiple recovery program and determine the program that works best for you under present circumstances. You do not have to wory about copying over the very files that you want to recover

Download and installation was easy. However, my main objective was to recover files on a DVD-RW that were accidently erased. Software did not even see the disk when installed. Restarted the software after installing disk and it did not see it. Started the software then installed the disk and it still did not see it. Without any further testing decided if it could not even see the disk, howreliable or usefule will the software be on things it may see.

My main Drive has been formatted a couple of times and the program has found an endless number of files from former formats!

Now, The scan does take a long time as would be expected so this program is'nt for the impatient (Worth mentioning a drive scan can take quite long time)
Overall though, The interface is simplicity, It asks what drive you want to scan on starting up then does just that.

Installed no problem, Windows XP SP3. Will not recover anything from the drive its installed on, just hangs when a file is selected. Also seems to conflict with my system when trying to recover from removable media. Hangs when trying to recover files from a USB thumb drive about 50% of the time. Will not close on its own, I have to use Windows Task Manager and end the task.
Might be a great program but doesn't run well on my system. This is the only program I have trouble with.

Recuva is free for life and will suffice for most people who are looking for a free alternative to this software (not just free for today, but free after a computer disaster that requires you to reinstall your system, or after you buy a new computer). For recovery of corrupt files from camera memory cards (secure digital, compact flash, memory stick, etc.), I use PC Inspector Smart Recovery (http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/smart_recovery/info.htm?Language=1). I have used it more than once to rescue pictures from camera cards.

It looks an excellent program at first glance but I was wondering whether or not this SW can recover any files from HD, including those lost after a technical problem.

A few weeks ago the partition D of my HD became suddenly RAW (so I need to format it now to make it active again) and since then I was not able to recover any files stored there with any PROFESSIONAL DATA RECOVERY SW (I used EASUS and GETDATABACK trial version).

Can somebody tell me if this SW is fit for purpose??

If not which alternative would you suggest me buying to solve my issue??

#23 mmmcherries - why not try going over to GOTD's forums. Plenty of sharp people like Fubar who might be willing to help you. GOTD forums aren't really designed for outright computer help, but, depending on your problem, you might be able to get some. More to the point, the web is full of good forums frequented by people who will help you with your computer problems. In fact, if you can describe your problem in a search engine, it will usually point to one where your problem might have already been answered. I'd recommend one, but I've only used them on a problem by problem basis, haven't used any one enough to recommend. But, I'm sure our good folks in the GOTD forums could recommend plenty. Hate to see you wait, maybe forever, for the right piece of software to fall into your lap. You might not even need special software to solve your problems.

I've got a specialized recovery problem, so I'll do some testing and if I come up with anything, I'll be back with results. Only posted now in case I could help mmmcherries.